Integrating TinkerTool into TinkerTool System 5

Enabling Integration

TinkerTool System uses some of the technologies found in the free sister product TinkerTool, an application to view and edit selected personal preferences, settings which Apple is offering for advanced “pro” users as part of macOS. TinkerTool and TinkerTool System do not overlap in any way, so administrators who like to have access to the full feature set of the two applications must copy both programs to their computers.

All features of TinkerTool can be accessed from within TinkerTool System if users like to do so. In this case, the panes of TinkerTool become plug-ins of TinkerTool System. It is still necessary that both applications are present on the computer. “Present” means that TinkerTool System can access the files of TinkerTool via a known folder. It is not necessary to place the programs into the same folder. You can use different folders, different disk drives, or even different computers (using network sharing).

To integrate the panes of TinkerTool into TinkerTool System, perform the following steps:

Launch TinkerTool System.

Select the menu item View > Add Panes from TinkerTool….

Navigate to the copy of TinkerTool which should be integrated. TinkerTool System will automatically search for the latest version present on your computer and will offer it as suggestion. Because it is possible to have several different copies installed simultaneously, this might not always be the preferred choice, however. Press the Open… button to confirm the correct selection.

After a few seconds, all panes of TinkerTool appropriate for your computer and operating system version will additionally appear in the section User Settings for …. The integration behaves like a user preference and will be maintained upon each start. This also means each user is free to choose if the connection between the two programs should be used or not. Each user account has the additional freedom to integrate different copies of TinkerTool if necessary.

Due to the large number of different variants of TinkerTool and TinkerTool System, some limitations apply regarding the question which variants can be combined with each other. TinkerTool System 5 can integrate copies of TinkerTool 6.

TinkerTool System doesn’t support operation in mixed languages due to internal restrictions of macOS and to avoid confusion. For example, if your primary language is French, TinkerTool will run with a French user interface as standalone application, but it will only run in English or German when integrated into TinkerTool System, because TinkerTool only supports these two languages. To control your personal priority of languages, open System Preferences and go to Language & Region. You can add languages to the table Preferred languages and reorder them as desired.

Disabling integration

The connection between the two applications will be detached automatically when the bound copy of TinkerTool can no longer be located in the folder chosen by the user. For security reasons, TinkerTool System will not try to track whether the application might have been moved to a different folder. To detach TinkerTool manually, select the menu item View > Remove TinkerTool Panes. The change will take effect immediately. It is not necessary to restart the program.